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Tornado Anniversaries

This thread here is also a complete joke.

 
The person who made this thread in regards to the Westminster tormado is an absolute joke.

Yeah I think they just lost all credibility going forward.
 
On this day 21 years ago a very likely F5 hit a couples house near Harper, KS. The damage it left was pretty comparable to the Jarrell, TX 1997 tornado but over a smaller area. There used to be aerial shots of what this tornado did but trying to find them would be next to impossible. When I saw the aerials the only thing that came to my mind was Jarrell.
 
On this day....nothing ultra-notable, actually! There was an F4 in Portland, IN in 1886, another F4 near Indianapolis in 1972, and some sources also mark the 5/13/23 Howard-Mitchell Counties, TX F5 as happening on this date as well.

The map:
 
On this day....

1896: The Sherman tornado. Potentially one of the strongest of all time, and took the appearance of a narrow drillbit while doing its worst damage - Elie on steroids. 73 died.



1968: Multiple strong to violent tornadoes in Iowa. An F5 near Charles City gets a ludicrous 528 mph windspeed estimate due to cyclodial markings, a windspeed likely never reached on Earth with the possible exception of at Cactus-117 on May 24th, 2011. A lesser known F5 impacts the town of Oelwein. F4s also occur in Arkansas, including the (seemingly?) hilariously short-tracked Oil Trough tornado that, somehow, still managed to kill 7, and then a 20.9 mile F4 that hit southern Jonesboro and killed 35.





https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NpE87...jaGFybGVzIGNpdHkgdG9ybmFkb9IHCQmNCQGHKiGM7w==
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YanM4LMniB8&pp=ygUZMTk2OCBjaGFybGVzIGNpdHkgdG9ybmFkbw==

2013: The Granbury, TX EF4. Though not the most solid post-1997 Texas E/F5 candidate (Westminster.and Matador beat it by miles), this tornado has also been mentioned in the discussion. It was also surprisingly short tracked, but still managed to kill 6 people. Cleburne is also hit by an EF3 in this event.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5-hGD7N5hU0&pp=ygUQR3JhbmJ1cnkgdG9ybmFkbw==
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sChBeEsxA9U&pp=ygUQR3JhbmJ1cnkgdG9ybmFkbw==
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o2r1VkLi6pM&pp=ygUQR3JhbmJ1cnkgdG9ybmFkbw==
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oVmHL2q8vTQ&pp=ygUQR3JhbmJ1cnkgdG9ybmFkbw==
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce4MKPzwmPI&pp=ygUQR3JhbmJ1cnkgdG9ybmFkbw==
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1t7DDmRJXA

Other events include F4 tornadoes in Texas in 1949 (one of which hit Amarillo almost directly!) and 1957.

The map:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1knhtdt/strongest_tornado_on_this_day_in_history_by/
 
May 16th is a bit of a down day. On this day...

1989: An almost entirely forgotten F4 hits areas near Brackettville, Texas. Late at night and possibly in an HP storm mode, no photos are known to exist of the tornado itself. The damage has also essentially been lost to time.


2015: Elmer. Yup.







The map:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1kobt3y/strongest_tornado_on_this_day_in_history_by/
 
The Last EF5*, 12 years ago today.
* Not actually the last EF5, by my estimates that occurred last Sunday in Grinnell, KS.







https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CwpdXjaE2ik&pp=ygUebW9vcmUgdG9ybmFkbyAyMDEzIGJlbiBob2xjb21i
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXPInB7y3ck&pp=ygUebW9vcmUgdG9ybmFkbyAyMDEzIGJlbiBob2xjb21i
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N1RXY7Lf43s&pp=0gcJCY0JAYcqIYzv

Today also marks the 6 year anniversary of the worst OK/TX outbreak that never happened.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eL6wX5KqC1k&t=2481s
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBwHxCLO9_4&pp=ygUOTWFuZ3VtIHRvcm5hZG8=

Let's whip out the map:

https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1krd9ka/strongest_tornado_on_this_day_in_history_by/

Need I say moore?

.....uh oh. (Runs from angry mob)

Also Ruskin Heights happened today 68 years ago for the few here who remember it
 
One year since the Greenfield day.

My chase did not go very well; after April 26th I did not want to once again tangle with the terrain and road network of southwest Iowa on another day with fast-moving storms expected. Besides, I thought the forecasted environment looked at least as good further east in the state, with a better chance for more discrete cells.

I did indeed get on one of these cells, near Albia in Monroe County, but contrary to model output the thermodynamics weren't quite there after multiple rounds of prior convection and it struggled to produce.



Noticed a somewhat similar thing play out this past Sunday, the short-term models insisted the Arnett cell should have remained in a favorable environment to produce more tornadoes as it continued northeast (leading SPC to say as much in this MCD), but reality would suggest otherwise.
 
Last edited:
Today marks the anniversaries of at least two notable tornado events (at least off the top of my head; if there are any other notable tornado events that occurred on this date, please share it with us here!):

First was the 2004 Hallam, Nebraska, F4 that killed one person and became the largest tornado on record at 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide, a record that would stand until the 2013 El Reno, Oklahoma, tornado took that crown with its even larger 2.6 mile (4.2 kilometer) width.

Second was the 2011 Joplin, Missouri, EF5 that caused 158 direct deaths and three more indirect deaths, becoming the deadliest U.S. tornado since the 1947 Woodward, Oklahoma, F5 tornado. Coupled with the massive death toll from the 2011 Super Outbreak less than a month earlier, this event spurred the development of the Weather-Ready Nation initiative in an effort to better understand the factors involved in tornado casualties and develop ways to mitigate them.
 
On this day 14 years ago, the question of how bad a tornado hitting a major population center could be was quite succinctly answered.






https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mNVuCXVKkLQ&pp=ygUOam9wbGluIHRvcm5hZG8=
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bDrvj83MNJY&pp=ygUOam9wbGluIHRvcm5hZG8=
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=arOtE7dedqA
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=21Unmt7f1XE
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nh5E_Rx4S38


Meanwhile, Hallam is there in the background reminding us it existed too. 21 years now:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QIMpZqBgQlY&pp=ygUOSGFsbGFtIHRvcm5hZG8=
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ngUtEFGAT00&pp=ygUOSGFsbGFtIHRvcm5hZG8=
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UGMTCbFZBbU&pp=ygUOSGFsbGFtIHRvcm5hZG8=
 
Ah yes, the famous 5/23/08 "4/27 on the Plains" day.


 
Ah yes, the famous 5/23/08 "4/27 on the Plains" day.




That day was absolute insanity. Kansas was extremely fortunate to avoid another Greensburg-level disaster (including, as I've noted elsewhere, Greensburg itself). I think last Sunday could have been closer to that level if not for that cloud cover and maybe if the upper-level forcing were a little faster.
 
That day was absolute insanity. Kansas was extremely fortunate to avoid another Greensburg-level disaster (including, as I've noted elsewhere, Greensburg itself). I think last Sunday could have been closer to that level if not for that cloud cover and maybe if the upper-level forcing were a little faster.
Yup. Don't see any clear EF5 candidates for 5/23/08 vs. 5/18/25 (Grinnell), and of course 5/18/25 was far less active, but they two are very similar otherwise.
 
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